Books Can Be Deceiving (12 page)

Perhaps it was just his slick packaging, but Lindsey felt like he had a lot on the ball. For the first time since she’d gotten the text from Beth saying that she was being taken to the police station, Lindsey felt herself relax just the tiniest bit.

“How are you?” Detective Trimble asked.

“I’ve been better,” Lindsey said.

Chief Daniels sat down but had to push his chair away from the table to accommodate his girth. The metal chair scraped across the floor, making a screech that sounded like the chair was under protest.

Detective Trimble gave the chief a look and then pulled a pen and a small pad out of his suit coat pocket.

“We’ll make this as quick as possible,” he said to Lindsey. “We want to go over the events of the day to understand how it all unfolded. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Lindsey said.

“Was Ms. Stanley upset after her boyfriend dumped her?” Chief Daniels asked. He leaned forward in his seat and gave Lindsey a squinty-eyed glare as if he were daring her to lie to him.

Lindsey raised her eyebrows in surprise and looked helplessly at Detective Trimble. “I thought we were talking about today.”

“We are,” Trimble said and gave Daniels a quelling glance. “When did you and Ms. Stanley decide to go out to Mr. Eckman’s island?”

“Right after lunch,” she said. “After we met with Ms. Carlisle, the editor, and discovered that Rick had plagiarized Beth’s work.”

“Allegedly plagiarized her work,” Chief Daniels cut in.

“There’s nothing alleged about it,” Lindsey said. “I’ve known Beth for years, and I know she came up with the story about the hamster ages ago. It’s hers.”

“Really? How is Ms. Stanley with a knife?” Chief Daniels asked.

Again, Lindsey turned to look at Trimble. He squinted his eyes as if trying to force back a headache.

“Chief Daniels, let’s have a quick chat in the hall, yes?” It was posed like a question but was anything but. The chief grumbled as he followed Trimble out into the hall. He shut the door after them.

From what Lindsey could hear, the conversation that followed seemed fairly one-sided. Trimble growled, the chief but . . . but . . . butted and Trimble growled some more. When they reentered the room, Daniels was red in the face and looked like he had an aspirin lodged in his throat.

“Now, where were we?” Trimble asked. He looked as smooth as ever, and Lindsey had to admire his cool.

“Beth and I decided to go out to the island after lunch,” she said. “Neither of us has a boat, so we stopped by Captain Sullivan’s to see if he could take us.”

Trimble jotted something down in his book and then glanced up at her. He gave her an encouraging smile. “Continue, please.”

Lindsey took a deep breath and told them all the events of the day as she could remember them. Daniels glowered, looking like he wanted to bust out with questions, but he managed to contain himself. Trimble took notes and nodded at her as if what she was saying was about what he expected.

When she got to the part about Beth going up to the cabin alone, Daniels looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel. He obviously wanted to focus on Beth, but Trimble gave him a look, and he slumped back in his chair in defeat.

Finally, when there was nothing more to say, Trimble handed her his card. “I’d like you to call me if you remember anything that you think might be of interest even if it seems like nothing. All right?”

“Yes.” Lindsey took the stiff white card with the state of Connecticut’s seal on it and slipped it into her pocket.

There was a knock at the door, and Emma, Officer Plewicki, opened it enough to poke her head in. “Captain Sullivan is here, sirs.”

“Excellent. Send him in,” Trimble said.

Chief Daniels openly glared at him, and Lindsey got the feeling that he didn’t like Trimble ordering his officers about.

Trimble rose when she did. Daniels did not.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Norris,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she said. As she turned into the hallway, she bumped into Sully. “Oh, sorry.”

“Not at all,” he said and steadied her with a firm hand on her elbow.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Okay,” she said, but it sounded lame even to her own ears.

“I’ve got a question for you.” He lowered his voice and leaned close so only she could hear him.

“All right,” she whispered, wondering what could be so urgent. Did he know something? Was she not supposed to say something to the police? Did he suspect who the real killer was? What?

“Tell me the truth. They didn’t use the rack, did they?”

His voice was teasing, and she knew he was trying to jolly her out of her nerves. She gave him a small smile.

“It’s worse than that, I’m afraid.” She lowered her voice, trying to make it sound ominous.

“No. Say it isn’t so,” he said, faking a look of horror.

“I’m afraid it’s . . .” she began, but he interrupted, “No, don’t say it.”

“Thumbscrews,” she said.

He clapped both hands to his cheeks and widened his eyes. His look of dismay was comical, and this time Lindsey felt a full-on grin break across her face.

“Captain Sullivan, if you’re ready?” Chief Daniels snapped from inside the room.

“Oh, better go,” Sully said with a grimace.

“Good luck,” she said. Then she wiggled her thumbs at him, and he gave her a quick wink before the door shut behind him.

N
ot surprisingly, sleep eluded Lindsey like a cat that did not want to be found. She tried tightening and loosening each muscle in her body from her feet to her head. It didn’t work.

She got up and heated some milk. It needed chocolate; better yet, it needed to be Sully’s hot chocolate.

She shuffled back to her bedroom and opened her window so she could hear the waves crashing on the beach. The air blew in cold, and she had to add another blanket to her bedding. She tossed and turned, but the bedsheets put up a pretty good fight, alternately strangling her and slipping across the bed to leave her cold.

After her breakup with her ex-fiancé, when she had packed up her things and moved to Briar Creek, she had discovered that she was prone to insomnia. Back then she had spent the sleepless nights watching old Hollywood musicals, falling asleep to the cheeky beat of Carmen Miranda working it in her ruffles and fruit hat.

Mercifully, that phase had passed, and as she settled into her new home and job, the sleepless nights had become few and far between. Until now, at any rate, and somehow she didn’t think a musical extravaganza was going to help wipe the imprint of Rick Eckman’s dead body out of her mind.

She gave up the wrestling match with her covers and grabbed her bathrobe off the foot of her bed, pulling it on as she headed out to the living room. She switched on the small lamp by her leather recliner and debated whether she should read or knit. She knew if she was knitting she would be thinking, which was the main reason she couldn’t sleep. She pulled her copy of
The Last Time I Saw Paris
out of her bag and opened it to page 1.

With any luck, Lynn Sheene’s words would lull her to sleep before much more of the night passed. The living room was chilly, so she pulled her favorite afghan over her legs. It was one large granny square crocheted in a rainbow of colors made from her Gram’s leftover skeins and hanks of yarn. Her grandmother had made it for Lindsey when she was a teenager, and Lindsey had taken it with her on every move, from leaving home to college, to apartments on her own, to her shared life with John, and now it was with her still, outlasting several boyfriends and one fiancé. It was like wrapping herself in a cinnamon-scented hug from Gram every time she used it, and she cherished that.

She yawned as she opened the book and took that as a good sign that she was beginning to relax. She was well into chapter 3 when the book slipped from her fingers and she burrowed into her chair with a soft snore.

Lindsey woke up with a crick in her neck. It took her a moment to stretch the kinks out of her back and wipe the sleep fog from her brain and remember why she was asleep in the recliner.

She reached down and scooped up the book, which had fallen to the floor. She found her bookmark wrapped up in the afghan and carefully marked her place and set the book on the table.

Today was Sunday, so the library was closed. She wished it were open so she’d have something to keep her busy. She glanced at the clock. It was past ten, so Sunday service was well under way. She supposed it was just as well. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face the entire town and the rampant speculation about yesterday even in a house of worship.

She wondered how Beth was faring. She and Nancy had taken her home in the Mustang after their time at the police station. Lindsey had offered to spend the night, but Beth assured her that she’d be okay. Nancy thought she was still in shock, but they let her go after making her promise to call them if she needed them.

Lindsey felt uneasy when she thought of Beth home alone, trying to process how her world had just imploded. That decided it. She was going to bike over to Beth’s house and see how she was. She’d stop by the bakery in town for coffee and muffins. No one could turn away coffee and muffins, right?

In no time, Lindsey was unlocking her bike from the porch rail on the side of the house and pushing off toward town with the wind in her hair and the smell of the sea in her nose. She loved her red Schwinn Cruiser with its whitewall tires and handy basket in the back. When she had moved to Briar Creek, she had promised herself she would be more green, as in environmentally aware, so she’d sold her car and become a bicyclist.

She had to grocery shop more frequently since her bicycle basket couldn’t hold a big load, but since the small grocery store was on her way home, she had folded it into her daily routine and found that she felt very European going to the market more frequently.

It felt good to do something for the planet, and on the upside, it had taken a few unnecessary inches off of her behind. She took the winding shore road into town. It was cool today, and she was glad she’d worn her heavy windbreaker over her knit top and jeans.

She parked in front of the Briar Creek General Store. It was quiet with few customers before church let out. Lindsey locked up her bike and went inside to the back of the shop, which had a small bakery. She was not surprised to find Milton Duffy there.

He was standing with his arms over his head, palms pressed together. His right leg was raised and bent at the knee with the sole of his foot lined up against his left knee. Lindsey recognized the position as Vrksasana, or the tree pose. Milton had tried unsuccessfully to teach it to her, but Lindsey always looked like a tree that had just been cut down when she tried it, and Beth had taken to yelling, “Timber!” right before she fell.

“Lindsey,” he greeted her. “Don’t tell me; you were lured here by the fresh chocolate-chip muffins.”

“And a steaming latte,” she said. She turned to the counter and asked, “May I have two lattes and two chocolate-chip muffins, please?”

“Coming right up,” the girl behind the counter answered. She looked to be somewhere in her late teens. Lindsey was sure she had seen her at the library. If she remembered right, her name was Robin, and she was an avid science fiction and fantasy fan.

“How did you like
The Hunger Games
?” she asked as the girl bagged the two muffins and handed them to her.

Robin grinned at her. “You remember me. I loved it. I’m already on the third book in the trilogy.” She paused to yawn. “Sorry. I stayed up too late reading last night.”

Lindsey returned her smile as she took the lattes and paid for her order. “I know the feeling.”

Milton released from his pose and began to walk with her as she headed for the door. “I don’t want to pry, but how is Beth?”

Lindsey knew that Milton was operating from a place of concern, so she squeezed his arm and said, “I think she’s in a state of shock.”

A head popped up from behind a rack of postcards of the Thumb Islands. It was Candace Halpern, or, as Beth liked to call her, “the helicopter.” According to Beth, when authors Foster Cline and Jim Fay coined the phrase “helicopter parent” in their book
Parenting with Love and Logic
, they were talking about Candace.

Somewhere in her early forties, Candace was short and skinny and seemed to be in a perpetual state of anxiety. Probably, all of her manic energy kept her from gaining any weight. Having recently gone nose to nose with her about keeping
The Dangerous Book for Boys
in the library, Lindsey had to bite back the urge to tell her to have a muffin and calm down.

Candace had two children and was a frequent user of the library, but as far as Lindsey could tell, her kids were never allowed to be more than six inches from her person at any given time and were certainly not allowed to participate in anything that might actually be fun.

Finger painting was forbidden as the paints might have hidden toxins, books about adventures were discouraged because they might give kids bad ideas and germs were everywhere. The kids weren’t allowed to touch anything until Candace had wiped it down with the antiseptic wipes she had on hand at all times. Yes, this included library books.

Lindsey could understand it if the kids were toddlers or prone to illness, but these kids were healthy eight- and nine-year-olds who could barely function on their own because Candace wouldn’t let them. It was just sad.

“Well, I for one demand that you fire her,” Candace said, inserting herself into the conversation.

“Excuse me,” Lindsey said. She gave her a hard stare, but Candace was taking the stance of morally outraged parent and was not about to back down.

“Milton, you’re on the library board,” Candace said to him. “I will expect you to represent the interests of all the parents in Briar Creek and make a motion for the swift dismissal of Beth Stanley from the library. Imagine, a murderess in contact with our children.”